Ethanol is a multi-billion dollar give away to ADM and its corporate friends plus a relatively small group of large corporate farmers. Meanwhile, the price of milk, cheese, meat (and beer) will continue to rise substantially in order to subsidize the aforementioned conglomerate and corporate interests. Just another day in the office for Gordon Smith and King George II.

A guy who works on my floor just purchased a beautiful $250,000 "used" Ferrari F430. Thanks to the fact that Oregon has no sales tax, he saved $20 - $25K over what he would have spent in either Washington or California.

Now remind me again. Why should Oregon raise the tax on working people who want to enjoy a beer after work?

Whoa! I agree with you? What's up with that?

Ethanol is a bandwagon that nobody should be getting onto - as we divert grain from food and feed production, we end up paying more for granola and milk - and essentially the same prices at the pump.

Moreover: petrol tills the ground, plants the seeds, harvests the grain, and transports it to silos. Just how does ethanol reduce our dependence upon oil?

Not just Gordito and Chimpie though -- don't forget to thank your Oregon Legislature and Governor. They're the ones who did Big Ag's bidding by blowing a hole expected to be worth $5 million a year in general tax revenue by passing and signing HB 2210, a biofuels subsidy bill. We'll be losing barley and hop land to grow soy and canola.

All over the world, people are waking up to the phony promises and environmental problems of the ethanomania craze and the biodiesel bonanza ... and just as everyone else is waking up, Oregon climbs on the bandwagon. Sad.

There's an excellent report out of Oregon State that just demolishes the arguments in favor of biofuels. But HB 2210 was groupthink at its finest--no questions, just get on board. Pitiful.

link to the Oregon State study. http://blog.onwardoregon.org/oregon-state-on-biofoolishness/

Tax alcohol? hahahhahahhah, cigarettes'll do fine...

Ethanol from corn is a quick dead end, rightly critiqued above as a give-away to ADM and other ag corps. Ethanol form cellulose is the only worthwhile technology, and even that will not allow our profligate energy use to continue.

Alcoholic beverages taxes have been justified by noting the cost to society of drinking's ill effects. I'm more inclined to support progressive taxation on income and wealth, but since rich people's money seems to be off-limits, beer tax is less onerous than tax on fruit juice.

should read:

"Ethanol FROM cellulose is the only worthwhile technology,"

TJ, what the EXPENSIVE means is that, for the $5 million a year we're going to use to turn energy from coal and disappearing natural gas into ethanol, we could have had a lot MORE reductions in greenhouse gases and imported a lot LESS fuel, and preserved a lot more soil if we'd simply used the price signals intelligently.

They say that pain is nature's way of telling you to stop doing what you're doing.

High cost alternatives are like pain --- they're trying to tell you that you're not doing it right.

Oh, and the nonsense about "mass production techniques" bringing biofuels prices down is simple fiction. The efficiency limits on biofuels are inherent in trying to create high-energy concentrated liquid fuels from very low energy concentrated feedstocks; it has nothing to do with the facilities. It's the chemistry that's the problem, not the industrial engineering.

Not to mention that, as ethanomaniacs like to say, Ford originally built his car to run on ethanol. In other words, we've had more than a century to figure out how to make ethanol most efficiently; since the 1970s we've had a massive ethanol subsidy boondoggle to promote the stuff. But in the end, you "canna' defy the laws of chemistry, captain!"

Gallon against gallon, you still need about 3 gallons of ethanol to move a car the same distance as 2 gallons of gas, and -- AT BEST (meaning giving credit for the energy in the distiller grains left over at the end of the ethanol distillation process) -- you used fossil energy equivalent to that in 2 gallons of gas to make that 3 gallons of ethanol. While robbing the soil and drenching it with petrochemicals.

TJ, what the EXPENSIVE means is that, for the $5 million a year we're going to use to turn energy from coal and disappearing natural gas into ethanol, we could have had a lot MORE reductions in greenhouse gases and imported a lot LESS fuel, and preserved a lot more soil if we'd simply used the price signals intelligently. And by the same token you'd have even MORE reductions by attempting both, correct?

Uh, no -- unless you know how to spend the same $5 million more than once. If you have $5 to spend at the store and you see beans for $1 a can and beans for $0.50 a can, you can have 10 cans at most -- every can of beans you buy at $1 a can means you can't have 2 cans of the other kind.

Regarding production techniques--you are talking about the conversion process here I assume; there is also the production process of the feedstock, which need not necessarily require the energy output it currently takes to bring it to the point of conversion.

I was responding to your assertion that somehow the cost of biofuels would come down thanks to some magic happening as "as mass production techniques improve." If you're NOT talking about the distillation process then you're talking about growing the feedstocks--and boy, now you're really getting yourself upside down in energy return on energy invested. Biofuels producers have two options: intensive cultivation and cropping in a small area (energy intensive) or less-intensive cropping over a wider area (which jacks up the energy cost to gather and transport the bulky feedstocks).

Look, the bottom line is simple: if biofuels plants relied on biofuels to power the machinery for growing and harvesting and processing, we'd have no biofuels plants at all. In North America, biofuels are nothing but a way to use diesel oil, coal, and natural gas to harvest subsidies -- they are a way to launder fossil fuels into something that sounds like it ought to be renewable.

Trying to run the transportation system on biofuels is like trying to heat your house by rubbing your hands together. Unless there's an outside source of energy powering the process, it just falls apart.

Question: is the energy cost of production based on using straight fossil fuels, or a variety of fuels with less harmful output? There's no reason you have to power the creation of more energy with the same old dirty energy, ad infinitum.

Now there's the interesting question. What I have proposed is that we only permit subsidies for the NET renewable energy gain --- that is, if biofuel maker produces 7,000 gallons of ethanol a day, then we should only pay a subsidy on the NET renewable energy content of that 7,000 gallons. Thus, no incentive to simply build a plant that uses existing power. So deduct all the non-renewable power inputs from the total and then only pay the subsidy on the difference.

The amount of hostility this idea generates is a good tipoff about how little gain we actually get from biofuels.

We've had plenty of time to research, but not so much serious interest. Only recently has the production of alternative fuels registered anything less than a full frontal assault from the fossil fuels industries.

That's a laugh--the fossil fuel industries LOVE biofuels; coal loves that ethanol plants burn 300 TONS a day of their poison; the oil industry loves all the spending on trying to maintain the internal combustion engine and the failure to shift to electrified transport systems. If every acre of cropland and marginal land in America was devoted to producing biofuels we'd still be burning billions of gallons of oil (much of it to haul biofuel feedstocks around). The easy assertion that "Big Oil" doesn't like biofuels is simply a myth--"Big Oil" LOVES that we are so addicted to their product that we'll even settle for an adulterated, inferior version rather than kick the addiction.

Why do you have to drench the soils with petrochemicals to grow crops, again?

Well of course we don't have to -- we can reject the biofuel delusion and not pit our stomachs against our SUVs. But if you plan on mining the soil and taking all the biomass and nutrients away from it to make biofuels, then you're committing yourself to either exhausting the soil in short order or to using a petrochemical fertilizer intensive system (think Iowa).

Great question, Chuck. Could the $1.3 million the industry spent on lobbying and campaign contributions to legislators between 1999 and 2001 have anything to do with it?

I got blasted the last time I waded into issue here, but I’m willing to try again. Let’s try out some of the arguments against a beer tax: it’s regressive, disproportionately impacting the working poor. It singles out a legal industry that creates jobs. Hmmm…aren’t these the same arguments we keep hearing from the tobacco lobby?

Oregon introduced its beer tax in 1975. It was last increased in 1977. It’s the 45th lowest in the nation, but when you factor in the absence of a sales tax, we have the lowest effective beer tax in the nation. We also rank 45th in the country for access for treatment and 49th in access for 18 to 26 year olds.

The budget cuts of 2001 and 2003 decimated our treatment system. About 1,000 jobs in county addictions programs were lost, and most of those have not been replaced. There was also a huge impact on private treatment providers, since many of them are dependent on state funding through county contracts.

Some more numbers: about 20 percent of all beer sold in this state is consumed by minors. Our eighth grade drinking rate is almost twice the national average. Ten percent of all beer drinkers consume 43 percent of the beer sold. It seems likely these heavy drinkers are imposing the greatest costs on our health care and public safety systems. Numerous national prevention groups have declared higher prices to be the single biggest deterrent to underage drinking. (Someone on an earlier thread declared this to be a “myth.” Sorry, but the numbers are there. It’s been documented numerous times.)

I’m vice chair of the Governor’s Council on Alcohol and Drug Programs. We supported the beer tax and also called for 10 percent of OLCC revenues to go for prevention and treatment. Governor Kulongoski asked for 2 percent for this purpose. None of this made it through the legislature. We did get $10 million in new general fund money, but it’s a drop in an ocean of need.

This session saw badly needed investments in education, but human services, including addictions prevention and treatment didn’t make nearly the headway they should have. If we can’t adequately fund these services from the general fund now, when will we ever be able to do so?

Uh, no -- unless you know how to spend the same $5 million more than once. If you have $5 to spend at the store and you see beans for $1 a can and beans for $0.50 a can, you can have 10 cans at most -- every can of beans you buy at $1 a can means you can't have 2 cans of the other kind. [1]Not sure what you're trying to say here--are you disputing that we can attempt to raise CAFE standards/reduce speed limits/etc, AND to convert fuel to less polluting options at the same time, and reap rewards from both? Biofuels producers have two options: intensive cultivation and cropping in a small area (energy intensive) or less-intensive cropping over a wider area (which jacks up the energy cost to gather and transport the bulky feedstocks). [2]How about no cultivation and cropping at all? What about entirely lab-based development of fuel stock? You are continuing to evaluate success based on static models of development, I fear. [3]I do not accept the idea that oil companies love biofuels, given that their use inexorably reduces their bottom line. [4]And you're also discussing the subject based on the premise that biofuels have a negative energy balance, when substantial research exists saying just the opposite. It depends on the inputs you use, as well as whether you give credits for the value of byproducts.

TJ: 1)If you look at the OSU study, they point out that all the proposed measures that they compared have a cost, so all I was saying is that you can't spend the same money twice. If you're saying "ignore the cost of the other measures and only count the $5M/yr in subsidies" why then, yes, you can do that. Of course, you get less benefit than if you spent MORE on the more effective measures ...

2) If we're back to the lab, fine, but let's get rid of the production subsidy then. I have stated that I don't have a huge problem with R&D subsidies, although we're well past the point where biofuels should be getting them. It would be GREAT if biofuels worked like we all wished they did, so some money for R&D at the universities is probably defensible; once in a while it pans out. Lord knows the University of Wisconsin is still rich thanks to its R&D work on Vitamin D and milk ...

But remember, that's not what HB 2210 is -- it's a production credit for ALL biofuels produced, no matter how badly or inefficiently, no matter how much fossil energy is used to create these "renewable" fuels, etc.

[3] Think that if you like. Right now, the problem with oil is that it appears to have peaked and gone into decline, meaning that they can sell all that they can pump (and more). All biofuels do is keep us from making the switch off liquid fuels longer by stretching them a little bit (and they stretch them primarily by, in essence, converting energy from natural gas and coal into liquids usable in cars).

[4] Even the biggest ethanomaniacs admit that you have to count byproducts to get into positive territory for energy return. Problem is, about the only thing these byproducts are good for is feeding cows (or worse, pigs) in CAFOs located right next to the ethanol plants -- in other words, more of exactly what we don't want. If the CAFOs aren't right next door, then the energy balance gets even worse, as you have to ship these HEAVY ddgs.

When discussing ethanol, I'm careful to use the most OPTIMISTIC energy result claimed by the most OPTIMISTIC ethanomaniacs, where they claim energy return on energy invested of 1.34 (INCLUDING non-fuel byproducts).

I was responding to your assertion that somehow the cost of biofuels would come down thanks to some magic happening as "as mass production techniques improve." According to the WSJ, ethanol is manufactured for about $1 a gallon in Brazil, compared to more than $1.50 per gallon for oil. (A) Do the laws of chemistry and economics work differently over there, or are they just using a cheaper, more efficient stock, like sugar cane? (B) Also, couldn't we lower the economic cost of ethanol tomorrow, as if by some magic happening, by simply dropping the tariffs that we have on importation of ethanol from countries that grow a lot of sugar cane? (C) George, you seem very well-informed on these issues. If biodiesel, ethanol, gassified coal, etc. are not legitimate solutions, what is your solution to meet our country's transportation needs over the next 20-30 years?

Sal: (A) Yes, tropically grown cane where the cane bagasse powers the distilleries has an energy return per unit invested of about 8.0, so it's vastly superior to anything we can do in North America. That's a fact of geography and the wretched, serflike conditions they use for cane harvesting (by hand).

(B) The import tariff is just another subsidy to the corn lobby, so of course it should be eliminated in one sense, but don't expect a lot to happen if it was. The worst possible thing that could happen is if we got rid of the import tariff and suddenly the Amazon went up into flames in order to clear even more land for soya and maize, which is exactly what would probably happen.

(C) What to do? Relocalize, relocalize, relocalize. That's really it -- start following the Oil Depletion Protocol suggested by Colin Campbell and Richard Heinberg. A stiff carbon tax, rebuild and electrify the rail system that was once the envy of the world, electrification of local transport, elimination of long-haul trucking, rebuild communities to provide access and reduce the need for mobility etc. etc. Make bikes and walking the priority mode of getting around. Act like we really believed the world was finite and that Jim Hansen of NASA actually knows what he's talking about (which he does). STOP TRYING TO MAINTAIN THE STATUS QUO BY SUBSTITUTING THE METHADONE OF BIOFUELS FOR THE HEROIN OF FOSSIL FUELS in other words.

See the Oregon League of Conservation Voters website for a longer list: http://olcvblog.typepad.com/olcvblog/2007/07/keep-oregon-gre.html

It is possible use beer responsibly, in moderation. It is not possible to use tobacco responsibly, in moderation. Tobacco harms you from the first puff. The same is not true for beer.

Kari, I'm not sure this is true. I know people who smoke expensive imported cigarettes, about three or four a month. That's it. My understanding is that one cigarette does about as much damage to your lungs as walking downtown for an hour and breathing the exhaust. (When I lived in DC and we had "red alert" air quality days, they said all those people running along the Potomac were doing the equivalent damage of an entire pack of cigarettes.)

I suppose you could say that the first puff technically harms you, but the harm is pretty de minimus -- no more than spending time downtown or eating a Big Mac. The real harm comes from nicotine addicts, and the same could be said of alcoholics when you factor in drunk driving, domestic violence, lost productivity, etc.

I've added some thoughts to this discussion over at Onward Oregon, trying to separate the beer from the biofuels discussion --- anyone interested is invited to keep discussing biofuels over there.

http://blog.onwardoregon.org/food-fuel-and-foodstamps/

I ask this in both places though:

"Was there ever a policy more immoral than one that encourages farmers to stop growing food for people in order to fuel up SUVs?"

Wake up, look around, you're in Oregon.

Brewers need some good publicity. Do you realize that small craft brewers, real people, with day jobs originally, have run every last mega-brewery out of the area?

This is the equivalent of getting everyone that shops at Wal-Mart to start shopping at the hemperies on Hawthorne Street, to the extent that every Wal-Mart in Oregon and Washington closed. The effects go WAY beyond the obvious.

We've gotten something right, and you want to tax the dirty sinners for the sake of our innocent children. Real Ale was a staple of our society long before guilty Victorian men invented childhood innocence. And hominids didn't form the first cities in support of agriculture so they could bake bread. Beer is at the core of our very concept of civilization.

This moral bit is over the top. Have you ever been to Plymouth Rock? It's a really nasty place, weather wise. Why would you pick there to settle with hundreds of miles of better coastline and harbors? They were out of ale and brewing onboard is out of the question. That's how the bible toting Puritans felt about it.

Kari,

I'll grant you that beer isn't dangerous in moderation (I'm a consumer of more than one of our Oregon microbrews myself), while tobacco is potentially much more lethal...still, they say only one in three smokers will die of a smoking-related illness. Is it fair to selectively tax all smokers to help pay the health care costs of the third of the group who will die from using the product...as well as paying for the health care of others who don't use the product--such as children? Anyone here on Blue Oregon planning to vote against the Healthy Kids plan for the sake of the poor guy who wants to have a cigarette with his after-work beer?

Do what I do.....brew your own! One nice way to tell the tax gougers where to put their idea!

Stacking wood? to burn?? What???

Poor, poor planet how will it ever recover?

Torrid Joe's points are well taken. You could say my "accomplishment" version of things is accurate, up to '05. Since the micros have taken over, they are becoming bigger and merging, and there is now a true mid-sized kind of brewery around.

There's lots of interesting angles to this, but the point for the debate would be that this conglomerating tendency will only be encouraged by increasing taxes and regulation. If you treat them like a big business, they will have to act more like a big business.

As to the point about the Pilgrim's and beer, I was surprised to hear an English acedemic claiming they also used it to fight scurvy .